Museums and Monuments

On our way to the Louvre we walked along the Champs de Mars, an area that was originally used for military training but is now a beautiful public green space that fills the blocks in between the Eiffel Tower and the Ecole Militaires. I was hoping we'd be able to have a picnic there at some point, but the weather never permitted such leisurely outdoor activities.

We also inspected a relatively new monument, le Mur de la Paix, that was designed by Clara Halter and installed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte WILMOTTE. Inspired by the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, visitors can leave their own messages of peace in the specially designed chinks of the Wall.

Once we finished this stroll, we headed to the Opera where we purchased tickets to see the Jeunes Danseurs later in the week. We ate our breakfast, purchased at a supermarket near the Champs de Mars, on the Opera steps. As you can tell from Aviva's bundled, wind-swept look, it was a bit chilly!

Then, we proceeded to the Louvre, where we spent the better part of our second full day in Paris. Even though we had several hours to explore, we only scratched the surface of what the Louvre had to offer. We were both happy to be selective, lingering over sections we found particularly interesting, moving quickly through others in what Aviva called "drive-by viewing," and skipping others altogether. We just didn't have the time or patience for things like the Decorative Arts collection or the Egyptian Treasures.

Call us crazy, but we decided to round out our day by visiting the only major museum that's open in the evening--the Centre Pompidou. We didn't visit any of the special exhibits because they weren't included in our Museum Card and we figured we'd have enough on our hands taking in the regular collection.

They did have this great general admission exhibit called the Movement of Images, which the museum described as a "rereading of 20th century art through the cinema." The exhibit was organized around the basic components of film--frame roll, projection, story and editing--in order to offer "a redefinition of the cinematographic experience widened to include all the visual arts." The exhibit also contained this fascinating installation peice that I think was called "Barbie." (I took a picture of the plate, but it didn't turn out clearly enough to read the title or artist's name). The entire room was bathed in a pink light and contained a huge pink, high-heeled shoe and a bunch of fabric that moved methodically in a created "breeze." There was also ambient music, a very slow-paced, rythmic sound that was incredibly soothing. In fact, sitting in the room was incredibly calming and the whole effect it created was quite beautiful.

Suffice it to say that by the end of the day our eyes were exhausted from looking at art and our feet were sore from walking the city streets. And now I'm tired from trying to recreate that hectic day. I'll have to summarize the rest of the trip in another post as I'm about to headd off to a screening of Thank You For Smoking at the Little Theatre.